HALF a million people have visited a Liverpool Titanic exhibition, beating all expectations.

Now jubilant bosses at the Merseyside Maritime Museum have announced they will extend the show from April next year until 2014.

They had hoped for a total of 450,000 visitors during the 12-month run of Titanic and Liverpool: the Untold Story, which opened on March 30.

But that figure has already been exceeded, with 498,475 people coming through the doors up to last weekend – an average of 2,077 a day.

That compares favourably with some of the largest visitor attractions in the UK, including 323,897 visitors to The National Gallery’s Leonardo da Vinci exhibition, and 460,000 for Tate Modern’s recent Damien Hirst show.

Maritime Museum deputy director Ian Murphy said today: "We've had a phenomenal response, so we've now decided to extend the exhibition to run throughout 2013.

"Our exhibition tells the Liverpool story. The city was central to the creation of Titanic and so many Liverpool people were among her crew on that fateful night.

“The response we get from visitors is that they appreciate the human story we’re telling.

“We often hear of statistics in relation to Titanic but this exhibition is a reminder the real lives of ordinary people were the heart of the tragedy. This is a powerful and emotional exhibition.

"We've also managed to keep things fresh with new displays such as the letters written aboard by Walton's Henry Wilde who was First Officer on Titanic.

“Visitors have come not just from Merseyside but from across the UK and farther afield like Australia and South America."

Titanic and Liverpool: The Untold Story features artefacts from the city-registered liner, including letters, emergency telegrams and items salvaged from the site of the wreck, and tells the story of her Liverpool passengers and crew.